{"id":764,"date":"2014-09-30T15:24:11","date_gmt":"2014-09-30T15:24:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/fishmarathon.org.za\/?p=764"},"modified":"2014-09-30T15:24:11","modified_gmt":"2014-09-30T15:24:11","slug":"haw-family-battle-lines-drawn-for-fish","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fishmarathon.org.za\/?p=764","title":{"rendered":"Haw Family battle lines drawn for Fish"},"content":{"rendered":"

With 1700 paddlers set to converge on Cradock for the Hansa Fish River Canoe Marathon on 10 and 11 October, few rivalries can match the intriguing race-within-a-race involving the infectiously enthusiastic Haw family.<\/p>\n

\"<\/a>
Murray Haw (back row, second from left), Bianca (back row, third from left), Tamika (middle left) and Glen (middle right) are looking forward to assembling for another weekend of terrific paddling at the Hansa Fish River Canoe Marathon.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Dad Glen, son Murray and daughters Bianca and Tamika \u2013 all ably assisted by super-second mom Mandy \u2013 are set to resume the internal family challenge over the two days and 82km of the race again this year.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor the past eight or so years I\u2019ve either driven my children or a youngster from Epworth down at Fish but with all our children having finished school now, I\u2019ll be in my K1 for the first time in a while,\u201d explained \u2018Farmer Glen\u2019.<\/p>\n

\u201cI normally get thrashed these days by the kids but it\u2019s all a heap of fun and now with the girl\u2019s boyfriends all being paddlers as well, there is quite a build-up ahead of the bigger races,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

Through Glen\u2019s organisation of the world renowned Nedbank sani2c, Old Mutual joBerg2c and, more recently, the BSi Steel dusi2c, the family name has become synonymous with adventure sport and hence the writing was on the wall for the next generation of Haws to graduate into outdoor enthusiasts.<\/p>\n

It is through this passion for the outdoors that the Haw family has developed a natural affinity for endurance sports which in turn has led to a rare inter-family competitiveness when it comes to events such as the Hansa Fish.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere is a huge rivalry amongst all of us!\u201d explained youngest daughter Bianca. \u201cThere\u2019s plenty of banter being thrown around the night before a race and then every night after the race all the war stories from the day\u2019s action are swapped and shared.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cMy brother is no longer part of our race because he has become just too strong a paddler for the rest of us, but every year the Fish is still a big race between my sister (Tamika), my dad and I!\u201d she added.<\/p>\n

All three siblings are based down at Stellenbosch University and passionate members of Maties\u2019 Canoeing Club, however it is in the familiar waters of KwaZulu-Natal \u2013 where all three were schooled \u2013 that they first made a name for themselves.<\/p>\n

Bianca burst onto the river marathon scene in 2011 when she won the junior girls title at the Dusi Canoe Marathon despite being just an U16 competitor and, in the same year, Murray won the junior boys title and it was here that the family contest first began.<\/p>\n

\u201cPreviously I\u2019d always taken the kids down the Dusi in a double but Bianca, who always wanted to go one better, decided she was going to do it in a single.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe started in the women\u2019s batch (C batch) and me in D batch but I only eventually caught her at Geoff\u2019s Road and shouted at her for going too hard.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe went on to win the junior girl\u2019s title, despite only being sixteen years-old, and in the process beat me. That\u2019s definitely where it all began for us,\u201d said Glen.<\/p>\n

Bianca and Murray replicated the feat with partners Jordan Peek and James Speed respectively in 2012\u2019s K2 championship year before the sisters then combined famously to clinch the final spot on the podium in 2014\u2019s K2 Dusi while Murray then narrowly missed out on a prized top 20 finish at this year\u2019s Berg River Canoe Marathon in the Western Cape.<\/p>\n

With her paddling pedigree well proven, Bianca recently turned to the family\u2019s other endurance sporting passion \u2013 mountain biking \u2013 to leave her mark. The young star went on to become South African U18 Women\u2019s National MTB Champ before clinching her age group\u2019s road cycling national title as well.<\/p>\n

With the family\u2019s primary focus on the KZN big three \u2013 the N3TC Drak Challenge, Dusi and Stihl Umkomaas Canoe Marathon \u2013 being the family\u2019s primary focus, the Hansa Fish comes very early in their paddling season however the internal rivalry is sure to make up for their lack of time of the water.<\/p>\n

\u201cWith Murray having done Berg this year he is in really good shape. I\u2019ve only just started my Dusi training again and I\u2019ve only recently done two small races down here in the Cape so I\u2019m going into this Fish still pretty unfit,\u201d said Bianca.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Fish is very early in our season so most of us are usually totally undercooked but it\u2019s always a good time down there!\u201d added Glen.<\/p>\n

The quartet\u2019s efforts would however not be possible without super second Mandy, a vital cog in the machine\u2019s functioning.<\/p>\n

\u201cMandy is the driving force behind all of us!\u201d said Glen. \u201cShe\u2019s the scariest too. Having spent six weeks over December training quite hard, we\u2019ll then get off the water pretty finished after a day\u2019s racing and yet she\u2019ll still be running around all of us, organizing cooler boxes and getting everything done.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s impossible for her to look after all of us nowadays though so I\u2019m left out to dry. Mandy says either I have to shape up or ship out!\u201d he chuckled. \u201cI guess if I can\u2019t keep up with Murray and the girls then it\u2019s my own fault!\u201d<\/p>\n

The Hansa Fish River Canoe marathon takes place on Friday 10 and Saturday 11 October 2014. More information can be found at www.fishmarathon.org.za<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

With 1700 paddlers set to converge on Cradock for the Hansa Fish River Canoe Marathon on 10 and 11 October, few rivalries can match the …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":763,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-764","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"blog_post_layout_featured_media_urls":{"thumbnail":["https:\/\/fishmarathon.org.za\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/09\/HawFamilySLIDER-150x50.jpg",150,50,true],"full":["https:\/\/fishmarathon.org.za\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/09\/HawFamilySLIDER.jpg",1050,350,false]},"categories_names":{"2":{"name":"News","link":"https:\/\/fishmarathon.org.za\/?cat=2"}},"tags_names":[],"comments_number":"0","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/fishmarathon.org.za\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/764","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/fishmarathon.org.za\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/fishmarathon.org.za\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fishmarathon.org.za\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fishmarathon.org.za\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=764"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/fishmarathon.org.za\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/764\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":766,"href":"https:\/\/fishmarathon.org.za\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/764\/revisions\/766"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fishmarathon.org.za\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/763"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/fishmarathon.org.za\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=764"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fishmarathon.org.za\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=764"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fishmarathon.org.za\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=764"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}